


Two Steps Ahead

by kiazareni



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, College AU, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiazareni/pseuds/kiazareni
Summary: Beka was his best friend. He was probably more important to him than his own family at this point, and they have always been very close, a fact that the others knew damn well. Did he know Otabek was hot as hell? Yes, of course, he wasn’t blind. That didn’t mean they had to be in a relationship.It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid.Right?





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuples/gifts).



> Hey everyone! This was supposed to be a oneshot but accidentally ended up longer than I thought it would. I don't know why I keep doing this. Anyway, I have to split it and upload it in chapters because it makes more sense for the plot and for my sanity. 
> 
> Also, there is a POV change in the chapter, don't be surprised. It won't happen again.
> 
> I hope you like it, enjoy.

Seung-gil nervously carded his fingers through his hair, taking a deep breath in front of the door. He tightened his hold on Phichit’s hand and his boyfriend squeezed back with a reassuring smile.

“It’s gonna be fine, they will love you.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, frowning more at himself than at Phichit, “I’m a very lovable person.”

“Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” he lied.

He stared at the closed door, behind which Phichit’s infamous group of friends were waiting for the two of them. He was about to meet them for the first time, and if he thought about it logically, he really didn’t have anything to worry about. Knowing Phichit, he’d already told all of his friends all about him anyway so they knew what to expect. He’d also heard a lot about them, knew their names, what kind of people they were, and if it came to that, he had at least two embarrassing stories of everyone so he could, hypothetically speaking of course, blackmail each and every one of them into giving their blessings to Phichit and him or whatever friends did to express their approval.

Logic seemed to have left him though, and he couldn’t recall any of those stories at the moment.

“Shall we go in?” Phichit, although smiling, bit the corner of his lower lip and Seung-gil silently cursed. Great, his ever so confident and uplifting boyfriend was also slightly nervous. That wasn’t worrying at all.

He eyed the disgustingly cheerful “We’re open!!” sign for a few more seconds and then reached out to push the door in, stepping in before Phichit.

He barely had time to look around, before he noticed a girl with bright red hair waving at them from a booth at the back of the place. There were three other people with her, all of them turning to look at him and Phichit, who started pulling him towards the group, not leaving him enough time to at least have a drink first, which by the way he really, really needed.

“Guys, we’re here,” Phichit announced from afar, as if they hadn’t already noticed them. He was smiling wider than Seung-gil had ever seen him, which was another indication that Phichit was more nervous than he had let on.

But, you know, they will love him, right? No need to be nervous.

“Make some room for us,” Phichit asked the girl, who slid closer to the wall on her left, “Sorry we’re late, Arthur got out of the cage and hid behind the washing machine, it took forever to get him out of there,” he added as he sat down.

“That was hours ago,” Seung-gil replied, momentarily forgetting that he hadn’t even been introduced yet as he turned to the others. “We’re late because he made me change three times and insisted on doing something with my hair because apparently it looked ridiculous. Sorry.”

Four heads turned towards him at the same time and for a second, there was silence. Then, one of them clapped his hands together with a delighted expression on his face.

“I like him,” he said, “I’m Viktor.” Seung-gil awkwardly shook hands with him while a dark-haired man he remembered was Phichit’s best friend (and Viktor’s boyfriend? Yuuri something? He was really bad with names.) pointed to the empty seat next to Phichit.

“Come on, sit down,” he told him, also offering his hand, “Hi, it’s nice to finally meet you, I’m Yuuri.”

Damn it, he wasn’t any closer to getting last names. Maybe it was for the best, he wouldn’t be able to remember them anyway. Seung-gil sat down and felt a little better now that the handshakes seemed to stop.

“And this is Mila and Yuri,” Phichit waved a hand around, offering no more information on any of them. The grumpy-looking blonde guy on the other side of the table nodded at him but then returned his attention to his phone. Mila was busy with her drink but waved her fingers in his direction with what was probably the biggest smile she could manage while drinking. All in all, it was probably the best first few minutes he could have hoped for. He was especially grateful for Mila and the blonde Yuri for not making a big deal out of this, although he was still desperate for a drink to help him lose some of the tension in his shoulders. God, even his back started to hurt.

On his right side, Viktor and Yuuri were sitting close to each other, with Viktor having an arm around Yuuri’s shoulder. Seung-gil wondered if he should hold Phichit’s hand or something. He wasn’t really the type who liked to be affectionate in public, and the fact that this group didn’t seem to mind that sort of thing wasn’t going to change that. But Phichit sometimes liked to show the world that they were a couple and Seung-gil had a feeling he would be even happier if his friends saw it too.

“Where are the others?” Phichit asked, and then turned to Mila, “Sara?”

“Sara couldn’t come, she has some family thing,” Mila replied as she put her drink down and grabbed her phone, pushing it towards Seung-gil, “that’s her, on my background! She’s my girlfriend,” she added proudly.

“She seems…” Seung-gil looked at the picture of Sara. She had black hair and her eyes were weird as fuck, almost like they were purple. “She seems nice,” he said.

“The nicest,” she sighed, “I think I’m gonna call her, ask her if she killed her brother yet.”

“And Otabek?” Phichit interrupted, still looking around for the rest of his friends.

“Went to get drinks,” Mila said.

“Oh,” Phichit turned towards the counter, “We should probably join him, I could use a drink.”

Seung-gil silently agreed. A drink sounded nice. Nicer than Mila’s girlfriend who was apparently the nicest. Which reminded him again that he should probably try and casually show his affection for Phichit, but he still didn’t quite know what to do with himself, how to act around his friends to show they didn’t need to worry about him, that, Phichit was safe and happy and Seung-gil was very much in love with him.

They definitely seemed like the type of people who didn’t mind all the couple-y stuff around them, that much was sure.

“Can you see him?” Mila asked, looking for their friend through the crowd of people at the bar. Seung-gil had no idea who to look for but the blonde guy sat up suddenly, joining the conversation but still holding his phone.

“I can tell him what to bring,” he said, “I’m talking to him right now.”

Mila raised an eyebrow.

“He left you for like five minutes and you’re texting each other?”

“So what?” Yuri rolled his eyes, “Want those drinks or not?”

Oh, yeah. He should definitely hold Phichit’s hand at least.

 

 

xxx

 

 

When Otabek came back with the drinks, Yuri made a point of not moving his legs out of the way and waited for Beka to grab his ankles and put his feet down from his seat. He did sit up straighter though when he spotted the glasses on the table and looked up at Otabek with a puzzled expression.

“Where is my beer?” he asked.

“Your lips said beer,” Otabek replied, “but your eyes said vodka shots.”

“Yeah I didn’t want to drink them alone,” Yuri said, grabbing the nearest glass, “but can you blame me? They are pink. And the green ones are called Shrek shots.”

“They look disgusting,” Mila said and made a face, although she kept eyeing the pink ones on the table.

“Shrek shots, Mila. They are called Shrek shots.”

“I’ll drink them with you,” Beka said and just shrugged with a smile when Yuri informed him that he was the best, ever.

“I’ve seen you around before,” Viktor turned to Seung-gil, who, in Yuri’s opinion, seemed a bit annoyed. “You study Engineering, right?”

“I do, yes,” Seung-gil replied politely, despite his expression. Maybe that was just his face, Yuri decided.

“Wait, really?” Yuri frowned, “How come I’ve never seen you?”

“You don’t go to your classes,” Viktor told him, which earned a laugh from Yuuri and Otabek, the traitor.

Yuri rolled his eyes but didn’t argue because he did, in fact, miss most of his lectures.

“It’s because it’s pointless,” he shrugged, “I knew most of this stuff in high school.”

“Sure, Jan,” Mila said as she stole one of the pink vodka shots.

The night went on with more alcohol and Yuri noticed that Phichit’s new boyfriend seemed to loosen up a little with every drink. He was sitting with his arm around Phichit, occasionally whispering something to him, making Phichit smile in a way that made Yuri question the dirtiness of whatever Seung-gil had said to him.

“Hey,” Yuri turned to Beka, leaning closer to him and away from the others, “What do you think of him?”

Beka hummed, and took his time to think about his answer so Yuri decided to make himself comfortable, resting his chin on his shoulder.

“He seems to love Phichit a lot,” he decided to say, tilting his head down so only Yuri would hear him, “I don’t think we can ask for more.”

“Yeah he better,” Yuri agreed, picking up the next shot, “Drink with me.”

Otabek looked around the table.

“You have the last one,” he said, “we need to go get more.”

He looked towards the bar but Yuri immediately grabbed his arm to stop him from getting up. He was way too comfortable, resting his head on his shoulder and although they certainly weren’t drunk, he felt a little tipsy and didn’t want to deal with the dizziness if he had to move.

“Drink half of mine,” he offered, reaching up and pushing his glass against Beka’s lips. Otabek chuckled, his breath tickling Yuri’s fingers as he took the shot from him, drinking only half of it before giving it back.

“You’re worried about Phichit,” he said teasingly, and Yuri scoffed.

“I am not,” he replied.

“You don’t have to deny it,” Beka leaned even closer, whispering to him, “I’m not gonna tell anyone.”

“Hey, lovebirds,” Mila’s cheerful voice yanked Yuri back to reality and he looked up, glaring at her. “One last drink before Otabek has to go?”

Yuri felt Beka’s shoulder move under his head.

“Shit, I almost forgot,” Otabek said, and Yuri sat up to allow him to check the time. “I’m late, sorry, no more drinks for me.”

“Go where?” Yuuri asked, looking around to see if he was the only clueless one in the group.

(He was, Yuri thought. Not about this, just like, in general.)

“I have a date,” Beka said as he put on his coat and got up, leaving Yuri alone on their side of the booth.

“Oh, good luck,” Mila raised her glass, “Is she or he hot?”

“He is,” he replied, but he didn't say anything more about the subject. Mila seemed to let it go and Yuri silently agreed. Beka usually went on a lot of dates, but his success rate wasn't really high so he probably didn't want to say too much beforehand.

“Hey,” Yuri looked up at him, lifting a finger to warn him, “Don’t bring him back to our dorm, I will not sleep in Guang-hong’s bed again because you can’t stay quiet. The last time I was there he kicked me in his sleep.”

“Fine, I won’t. Or at least I’ll let you know soon enough so you can still go to Mila’s place.”

“Whatever,” Yuri shrugged, “I just don’t want to listen to you two.”

“Good luck,” Phichit said with a bright smile, interrupting them.

“You’ll need it,” Yuri added, flashing a similar bright smile in Beka’s direction just to annoy him.

“Nice, thanks,” Beka laughed. He said goodbye to everyone and left in a hurry, already reaching for his phone, most likely to text his date that he was going to be late.

When Yuri turned back to the table, he found himself sitting opposite from Seung-gil, who silently stared at him with utter confusion on his face. Phichit noticed it immediately, and he frowned, touching his boyfriend’s shoulder to get his attention. Before he could say anything though, Seung-gil took a deep breath and raised his head a little more to look Yuri straight in the eye.

“I’m sorry but are you okay with this?”

“With what?” Yuri had no idea what his problem was but apparently Seung-gil, as silent as he was when he arrived, had been drinking just enough to gain the liquid courage and keep talking.

“He’s going on a date with someone else, right? But I thought you guys were together.” His puzzled expression was almost funny and Yuri would have laughed if he had known how to even react to that sentence.

“What?” he decided to say after a few seconds of silence. “No, he’s my best friend.”

“What?” Seung-gil shook his head, the wheels turning in his mind almost visible in his deep frown. “That can’t be right.”

“Excuse me?” Yuri raised an eyebrow. He vaguely noticed that everyone at their table stopped whatever they were doing and listened to their conversation with growing interest. Yuri would have loved them to mind their own fucking business while he deals with this, but apparently this was the single most fascinating thing they have ever heard because they didn't even move, careful not to miss anything.

“I mean, sorry, but it seemed pretty obvious to me,” Seung-gil said, “you were holding hands!”

“So?” Yuri asked. He still wasn’t sure why this was such a big deal. They held hands with Beka all the time.

“I think what he means,” Mila said, saving Seung-gil from further awkwardness, “is that you guys, hm, how should I put this… you’re worse than Yuuri and Viktor.”

“Hey,” Yuuri frowned.

“She has a point,” Viktor agreed, raising an eyebrow at Yuri who, in return, tried to murder him with his eyes.

"Now that you said it," Phichit cocked his head to the side, pressing his lips together as he was thinking about it, "you're like the most affectionate couple out of all of us and you're not even dating."

“Okay, fucking stop, everyone, right now,” Yuri held up his hands and then hit the table with his palms, “I need a fucking drink.”

He looked around, then snatched Mila’s vodka-lime.

“You stole one of my shots so this is mine now,” he announced. “Look, all of you, I don’t know where you got this bullshit from, but you all damn well know that Beka is my best friend since I was like five.”

“We know,” Phichit said, then turned to his boyfriend, “His parents made him go to a skating camp, Otabek was seven and a disaster on ice, so Yuri got annoyed and decided to teach him how to skate backwards.” He turned back, smiling at Yuri, “You’ve told us the story like a billion times already.”

“Then I don’t know why I have to explain this,” Yuri replied in a sharp tone, “I fucking grew up with him, of course I’m not scared to hold his fucking hand if I feel like it!”

“We know, Yuri,” Mila repeated Phichit’s words, “But... okay, seriously. Are you _sure_ you don't have feelings for him?”

“Yes, I am,” Yuri put the glass down, “And if any of you mention this one more time I will fucking flip this table.”

Beka was his best friend. He was probably more important to him than his own family at this point, and they have always been very close, a fact that the others knew damn well. Did he know Otabek was hot as hell? Yes, of course, he wasn’t blind. That didn’t mean they had to be in a relationship.

It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid.

 

Right?

 

 

 

He almost believed himself until he got home that night and stepped into their shared dorm room with Otabek, only to find his friend already in bed, watching something on his laptop.

“Hey,” Yuri said, rubbing his temples as the effects of the alcohol started fading, leaving him thirsty and exhausted. “The date?”

“Sucked,” Otabek replied, “Your night?”

Yuri shrugged, not really knowing how to answer. _Hey, turns out, all of our friends think we act like we're dating, what a joke, right?_

“It was fine,” he said, “nothing special.”

His own words echoed in his mind as he went to bed, playing on an unstoppable loop.

Nothing special, he told him.

Yuri’s original plan was to talk about what happened and laugh it off. So why couldn’t he do that, when Otabek asked about his night? If there was really nothing to it, then why did he have these knots in his stomach and why did he feel the need to lie?

Fuck, he really needed either another drink, or eight years of sleep.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You’re either staring at me or you refuse to look at me,” Beka continued, “the last time you did this, you were twelve and came out to me two days later. So out with it,” he tilted his head with a teasing smile on his lips, “don’t tell me you figured out you’re straight after all.”_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Yuri rolled his eyes. That had a smaller chance than getting his Hogwarts letter eight years after it was supposed to arrive._

Attending lectures as a form of distraction had proven to be Yuri’s worst idea to that date in his entire life.

Yes, he was that desperate. After spending the whole day in their shared room, trying to survive the mild hangover by watching movies and eating trash food, and having to watch Beka do the same while sitting right next to him, he seriously needed to get out of there. No matter what he did, there was a quiet, but persistent voice in the back of his mind that kept playing the same question over and over again, like a white noise in the background that’s just loud enough to drive you crazy.

_Are you sure you don’t have feelings for him?_

And that was only after his other question ( _Do we really act like a couple?_ ) had been easily answered. It only took him about an hour on Sunday morning, when they went through their usual weekend routine and the realization hit Yuri like a truck at full speed. 

As usual, he was the one who woke up first, and by the time Otabek stumbled into the tiny kitchen they shared, half asleep and grumbling about coffee, he had already had one waiting for him on the counter. As usual, Otabek managed to get a barely understandable ‘thank you’ out, while Yuri pretended to at least try not to laugh at him. 

“You look like someone murdered you in your sleep and you came back as a vengeful spirit,” he commented and Otabek glared at him from behind his coffee mug. 

As usual, it only made Yuri laugh even harder. “Beka, I can’t take you seriously with that mug in your hands. It has tiny little kittens on it.”

“Yes, I wonder who bought it for me,” Otabek replied with a dry voice and completely straight face, before he took another sip from his mug which was indeed very pink and had very adorable cats on it, making the whole grumpy face he had on a lot less scary. “Must have been my other best friend.”

“Which one?” Yuri asked, because on days like this, he was unable to leave Otabek alone until he got his system up and running and at least started to feel like a human being. 

“The better one.”

“Please,” Yuri hopped off the kitchen counter and joined him at the table, taking his own coffee mug with him. That one had teddy bears on it and officially it belonged to Otabek, but Yuri was the one who used it everyday. “As if you could find a better best friend.”

“You know, I would argue,” Beka replied and yawned before he continued the sentence, “but your coffee wins against anyone.”

“I know,” Yuri said with a smirk, “not to mention my irresistible personality.”

Otabek thought about this for a second and then shook his head.

“No, it’s the coffee.”

“Damn, Altin, and people think I’m the grumpy one.”

As usual, after life had started returning to their bodies with a little help from the caffeine, he decided to order some takeout for both of them while Otabek took care of their weekly laundry. Yuri was left alone in the room, still a bit slow and tired from being up late last night, and he basically moved on autopilot as he searched for a cheap but decent place to order food from. 

He left a note on the online order asking for an extra topping for Beka’s pizza, knowing that the guy was an actual freak who loved extremely spicy food when he was hungover (but only then, because he was a fucking weirdo). Yuri chose pancakes but ordered more than he wanted because he just fucking knew that Beka was going to steal at least two of them, flashing an apologetic smile, puppy eyes and a promise to get his own pancakes next time.

As usual.

He leaned back on his bed as he hit enter, frowning when all of this had been finally processed by his half-asleep brain.

Huh. There may have been some truth in that whole “acting like a couple” bullshit.

 

So, upon discovering that, of all people, _Viktor and Mila_ were right about this, Yuri spent an embarrassing amount of time in a silent existential crisis and decided that maybe going to classes on Monday wasn’t such a bad idea.

Which, again, was a spectacular failure on his part because all he had achieved was that he paid attention for exactly six minutes, then got bored and spent the remaining time of his lectures thinking about Otabek and this whole situation with him.

From 8.06 am to 3.30 pm. 

He still wasn’t even sure that there _was_ a situation to think about. He had always vehemently protested the idea that just because someone is available (meaning, Otabek was bisexual so theoretically Yuri had a chance) he had to immediately make a move on them. That was some homophobic and biphobic shit he’d been listening to all his life and he was always proud of their friendship for proving these narrow-minded shitbags wrong.

But also, he couldn’t deny that Otabek certainly wasn’t painful to look at. He always had this cool exterior with the leather jacket, the undercut, and the sharp jawline which made him look like the definition of a bad boy greek god, but pair those with the impossibly warm brown eyes deep enough to get lost in them, the longer strands of hair on the top of his head that seemed to defy gravity and just stood in every direction despite Beka’s (and sometimes Yuri’s) every attempt to untangle them, and the softest of smiles hiding in the corner of his lips, and the result was...

“Yura, you’re staring.”

Beka’s voice snapped him out of this train of thoughts and Yuri suddenly realized that he had, in fact been staring at Otabek for god knows how long. His friend didn’t even look up from the book he balanced on his knees, but he was smiling, which certainly wasn’t because he found kinesiology so damn funny.

“I zoned out,” Yuri replied, his eyes returning to his computer that had long gone into sleep mode.

“I’m studying,” Beka said, “your staring is distracting.”

“Your face is distracting.” Yuri told him, ignoring the sudden drop in his stomach when he realized that technically, that statement was true. “Hey, remember the guy you went out with?”

Beka looked up from his book and turned to Yuri.

“It was on Saturday. No, Yura, I don’t remember,” he deadpanned. “What about him?”

“Why didn’t you like him?” Yuri leaned back on his own bed, stretching his legs and taking this as an opportunity to look away from Otabek without raising the suspicion that he just wanted to avoid his eyes.

“He was boring,” his friend replied simply.

“Boring how?”

Beka was quiet for a few seconds.

“I don’t know, just… boring. Why are you asking?”

“No reason,” Yuri lied, and he risked a glance at Otabek on the other side of the room. His friend was watching him with a curious expression, clearly waiting for a reason, an explanation why Yuri was suddenly so interested in his date. (Something Yuri himself was also very curious about so he definitely wanted to avoid that question.) “Shouldn’t you be studying?”

Beka groaned and got out of his bed, walking over to him.

“I’m done for tonight,” he said, even though he clearly wasn’t because Yuri had been watching him for like twenty minutes and he was pretty sure that Beka didn’t even have the book in the first half of that creepy staring-session. “Move over, let’s watch that ghost hunting series you like.”

“I know you secretly like it too,” Yuri replied, scooting closer to the wall so Beka could sit down next to him. He made himself comfortable, throwing Yuri’s blanket over the both of them as he settled back against him, using his shoulder as his pillow.

“Yeah, I do.”

Yuri shrugged a little under Beka’s weight, looking down at him.

“Don’t fall asleep on me, asshole,” he warned him.

“I won’t,” Otabek promised, but he looked tired and Yuri knew him well enough not to believe him. 

Still, he didn’t say anything more and two episodes and an hour later, when Beka was quietly snoring against him, he just set his laptop aside and lied down next to him, pulling up the blanket to cover them both properly. He watched Beka for a while, his eyes following the line of his jaw, the slight curve of his eyebrows, the way his lips parted in his sleep. 

They’d slept together like this a thousand times before. 

This time didn’t feel any different.

Careful not to wake him, he pulled his arm out from under Beka, who turned and shifted, moving closer until his forehead was pressed against Yuri’s shoulder.

As usual. 

 

If Yuri thought he could be subtle about this, maybe pretend that nothing was wrong (because _nothing was wrong_ anyway), and this weird feeling would go away eventually, he was gravely mistaken. Things only went downhill after this, which is how he ended up on Mila’s couch a week later, when he grudgingly admitted defeat and asked for help. 

He couldn’t have possibly chosen a worse candidate for the job than Mila, who was practically beaming from the moment Yuri stepped into her apartment and dragged himself to her couch, making it very obvious that this was the last thing he ever wanted to do. Mila of course looked like she had just received the greatest gift of her life. Yuri hated how much she enjoyed this, but he was a little short on options at the moment and Mila was still his best shot at getting a coherent answer or an advice that might even be useful. 

Well, after she was done giving Yuri shit for proving her right.

See, there were multiple steps along the way where Yuri undoubtedly screwed up, starting from the morning after he fell asleep with Otabek in his bed, arms touching and shoulders pressed together, with Beka’s light snoring at his ear. 

He woke up to the smell of fresh coffee waiting for him on his nightstand and the distant sound of running water coming from the bathroom. His eyes were still half-closed as he reached for the paper cup, and somewhere deep in his barely awake mind, his brain registered the fact that of course Beka didn’t make it himself, he never did, he went to their favourite coffeeshop nearby, because apparently that was less trouble than making his own coffee in their kitchen next door.

He checked the time and saw that he still had almost two hours to catch his first class that day (technically the second, but the first one that _mattered_ ) so Yuri decided to go through his favourite morning routine and stay in bed with his phone, lazily scrolling through his social media to see what he missed while he was asleep. 

There was only one message waiting for him from Phichit, informing him that they all needed to meet to plan Mila’s not-really-a-surprise surprise birthday party. He was just about to reply when the bathroom door opened, and Yuri instinctively raised his eyes only to see his best friend walk into the room with nothing but a short towel around his waist.

A really short towel. 

It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. But still, he found himself unable to tear his eyes away as he followed that one small drop of water making its way down Beka’s chest, drawing a glistening line between his abs before disappearing in the thin black hair under his navel and Yuri suddenly had to push the mental image of him kissing and licking down its trail out of his mind.

His mouth went dry and he shook his head, a frown deepening on his forehead as he forced himself to look away. 

“Would you stop doing that?” he heard himself say before he could think about it, and Beka turned to him with a questioning raise of his eyebrows.

“Doing what?”

“Just fucking get dressed already, you’re not alone in the room,” he muttered, knowing full well how stupid he sounds.

“It never bothered you before,” Beka said, his expression shifting slightly as a small smile appeared on his face, giving away his amusement. 

“Well it bothers me now,” Yuri told him, still keeping his eyes on the phone. He couldn’t see Beka’s expression, but he didn’t answer, and a few seconds later the bathroom door quietly closed behind him again, his clothes from the bed disappearing.

Yeah, so maybe Yuri was bothered by this. 

A little.

Still, he believed he could do this. He moved on, focused on his classes, went out with his friends, watched movies with Otabek, and everything was perfectly normal until that one time when they all got together to plan Mila’s not-really-a-surprise surprise birthday party.

“Okay,” Phichit sat down in front of them without saying hello, dumping a folder on the table between them, “not-really-a-surprise surprise party ideas, hit me with them.”

“Why?” Sara chuckled. “You have an entire folder already.”

“Work with me, Crispino,” Phichit put his palms on the table, drumming with his fingers, “this has to be special.”

Of course, every party had to be special when you were friends with Phichit. 

He dragged Seung-gil to the coffeeshop with him, who looked like he honestly just wanted to be ignored, fiddling with his cup and barely looking at either Yuri or Beka. He seemed more than happy to turn his attention to Viktor, who immediately started chatting about various themes that Mila would like, most of them including masks or some kind of dresscode.

“No costumes,” Yuri commented with a grim expression, “I am so not doing costumes.”

“Why not?” Yuuri asked, “It would be fun.”

“Yeah, remember the halloween party last year?” Phichit added, “You and Beka dressed up as Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow. And you won, even though my zombie Arthur Stuart was clearly better.”

“Please,” Yuri scoffed, “my genderbent Daenerys was far more superior. Still, I’m not doing costumes for Mila’s birthday, that’s incredibly lame.”

It wasn’t lame. Yuri loved dressing up, figuring out and planning outfits, sometimes even making them with his own two hands, but right now he didn’t really feel like explaining to Otabek why he opposed to the idea of a couple’s costume, which had long been a tradition in their friendship. 

Not for any particular reason, of course, he just didn’t want to add more fuel to the fire. Although Seung-gil looked like he never wanted to speak to either of them again, growing a bit red from what was probably a fair amount of embarrassment as Phichit mentioned their costumes. Serves him right, Yuri thought, this whole situation was his fault.

Not that there was a situation.

Beka tentatively touched his shoulder, drawing his attention away from the group as they went on, chatting about gifts.

“Are you sure about the costumes?” he asked. “You’ve been going on and on about how next time you wanted to be Captain America.” His expression softened, a smile playing on his lips. “I even started looking for ideas so I could be Iron Man.”

Yuri bit the inside of his cheek because goddammit, he really wanted to do that. Beka would have been an amazing Tony Stark, especially if Yuri could just convince him to not shave for a couple of days, and he even had some ideas about his helmet without having to spend too much money on it, never mind the shield for his own costume which would be really fucking easy to make…

“No costumes, Beka,” he said.

“But…”

“For fuck’s sake, man,” Yuri snapped at him, “I don’t want to dress up.”

“Okay, okay,” Beka drew his hand back. “You don’t have to.”

Yuri turned back to the others, but he could still feel Beka’s eyes on him, his confused expression practically burning a hole into his skin. 

So, you could safely say that Yuri was far from being the grand master of subtlety and keeping things cool. Which is why it shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise when Otabek started to notice that maybe things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows between them, or at least with one Yuri Plisetsky who for some reason still believed he was the marble statue of repressed feelings. 

Because he still tried not to make things weirder than they already were, but at every second, the signs were all there. He could see it in the way Beka naturally put his arm around him to rest his elbow on the back of Yuri’s chair, or in the casual moment of Beka holding the door for him, resting his hand on the small of his back as he led him out of the coffeeshop. It was in the way Yuri automatically went to the kitchen to make dinner when they got home, without having to decide what they wanted to eat or if Beka even wanted him to cook for both of them. It was there when they stood side by side in the bathroom, brushing their teeth in comfortable silence, or when Beka joined Yuri on his bed to braid his hair like he usually did when he somehow knew Yuri would be too lazy to do it himself but would end up complaining about the knots the next day. 

“So,” Otabek spoke quietly, breaking the silence between them. There they were, sitting close to each other on Yuri’s bed in their shared dorm, and he held out his palm for Yuri to drop the hair tie in it as he finished up the french braid before they went to sleep. “Any ideas what we should get for Mila?” 

They had always bought presents together for their friends. Not only when the whole group agreed on a more expensive gift and split the costs, but for every occasion, Otabek and Yuri always gave one gift together. At any point during the last ten years of his life, Yuri wouldn’t have thought anything about it. It was just how they had always been. Now, he wasn’t so sure. 

“Uh, no.” Yuri hadn’t thought of anything, since he very obviously had more pressing matters to stress about during the last few days. “You?”

“Well, there is this new tv show she is obsessed with,” Beka said. He had already finished braiding Yuri’s hair but stayed where he was, his arms circling Yuri’s waist as he leaned forward to rest his chin on his shoulder. “Maybe some kind of merch? A mug, or a t-shirt?”

“Okay,” Yuri replied, pulling his laptop closer to find something online and rolled his eyes when he remembered something else. “Oh, and she sent me a link a few weeks ago, of some earrings she liked, I think that was her subtle way of telling me she wanted them for her birthday.”

“We could add that too,” Beka tilted his head, his hold on Yuri tightening as he took a deep breath. “Show me.”

Yuri pulled up their conversation with Mila, his finger stopping over the keyboard before he opened the link. Beka stifled a yawn, pressing his forehead into Yuri’s shoulder and hiding his face in his t-shirt, his breath hot on Yuri’s skin through the thin fabric, and there was only so much Yuri could take before putting his foot down and facing the root of all his problems. The line had to be drawn somewhere, and apparently that line was his best friend pressed against him, his fingers drawing smoothing circles onto his skin, the feeling of his lips barely touching Yuri’s back. He straightened up and turned around, letting Beka’s arms fall from his waist.

“Hey, Beka,” he started, “Do you think we’re weird?”

Otabek was frowning, and Yuri kind of wanted to shove a pillow in his face, because he hated the thought of having to go into details and explain what he meant.

“What do you mean?” 

Yuri already regretted that he brought up the subject at all. He shrugged, frustrated, because this was the one time he could really use Beka reading his mind and him not having to voice his thoughts, but no, life was cruel and unfair and decided that Yuri had to have a whole conversation about this, with complete sentences and words said out loud.

“Nothing, just… do you ever think about how other people act with their friends and how different we are?”

Beka knitted his eyebrows, searching for the right words as he tried to answer Yuri’s question. 

“I’m glad we’re different,” he decided to say after a few silent moments and looked up to find Yuri’s eyes, “I don’t care what other people do or think.”

“Are you sure?”

“Okay, where is this coming from?” Otabek asked, “And don’t tell me that it’s nothing because you’ve been acting strange for days.”

“No, I haven’t,” Yuri denied, stubbornly turning his head away, which didn’t help his case at all.

“You’re either staring at me or you refuse to look at me,” Beka continued, “the last time you did this, you were twelve and came out to me two days later. So out with it,” he tilted his head with a teasing smile on his lips, “don’t tell me you figured out you’re straight after all.”

Yuri rolled his eyes. That had a smaller chance than getting his Hogwarts letter eight years after it was supposed to arrive.

“Okay, fine,” he said, “I’ll tell you, but don’t be weird about it.”

He made a mental note to appreciate the irony of him saying that, then took a deep breath and decided to just tell him. Beka was his best friend, he was going to understand, right?

“After you left on Saturday,” he started, “Phichit’s new boyfriend, Seung-gil or what’s his name almost lost his shit that you went on a date, because he thought we were a couple.”

He waited to see Beka’s reaction, but he seemed completely unfazed, looking at him as if he expected Yuri to continue. 

“And,” he went on, because clearly this wasn’t enough to explain just how strange it was, “turns out, all of our friends agree that he wasn’t blind or stupid. We act like we’re in… like we’re together. As in, together-together.”

He caught himself right before he said “in love with each other”, thinking that maybe he should spare Beka all the details, most of which he came up with while his mind was spiraling out of control.

“Okay,” Beka said, “so?”

Yuri stared at him, wondering which circle of hell he ended up in.

“So?” he repeated. “Doesn’t this bother you at all?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Beka replied because he obviously didn’t understand a single word Yuri just told him. “Should it?”

“Well, no,” Yuri scoffed, “it shouldn’t. Because we’re best friends, and they just don’t get it. Right?”

“Right.” Beka was still frowning, although Yuri suspected that had to do more with his reaction than the topic they were discussing.

“Okay, then.” 

“Yura… does it bother _you_?” he asked, and Yuri felt a flush coloring his cheeks as he turned away and angrily pushed his braid over his shoulder.

“Of course not,” he said, “I just wasn’t sure if you were okay with it.”

“Of course I’m okay with it,” Beka’s frown disappeared and he smiled, reaching up to sneak his arm around Yuri’s shoulders, pulling him closer and forcing him to turn back towards him. “Yura, you know everything about me. You’re my best friend. It’s only natural that we’re so close.”

“I know.”

“So, we’re fine?” 

Yuri took another deep breath, pressing his lips together in a thin smile.

“We’re fine.”

 

They were, as it turned out later, not fine. Or maybe Otabek was, Yuri wasn’t sure, because after that, the asshole acted like this conversation never even happened and went about his business as if he hadn’t had the same life-shattering experience Yuri had when the idea of them dating was planted into his head. He still sometimes fell asleep in Yuri’s bed, brought him coffee in the morning, or expected Yuri to make one for him, he still brushed and braided Yuri’s hair, sent him cat videos and regularly chatted with Yuri’s grandpa, promising him that _yes, he is taking care of Yura, yes, they are both eating well and studying a lot, like the good kids they are_.

And it drove Yuri insane. 

The breaking point, after which he, as previously mentioned, ended up at Mila’s apartment, seeking comfort in hugging as many pillows as it was humanly possible, had come in the form of the next Friday night when Yuri basically fell through the door at around seven pm. He had a fucking long day, because Otabek actually made him attend all of his lectures and then Viktor found him on campus somehow and dragged him to the library with the excuse of their upcoming exams to make him sit down and study for like three hours. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into his bed and watch a movie, and then tease Beka for falling asleep during the last five minutes.

“Oh, hey,” he said, stopping when he noticed Otabek in front of the mirror, putting on what was commonly known as the Date Night Shirt. 

The Date Night Shirt was an army green button-up that usually had the effect of girls and guys fainting at Beka’s feet when they had the good fortune to lay eyes on said piece of clothing. Or more like, the person under the clothing. Yuri was convinced it had some sort of magical power, because no one should have the right to look that good in a simple shirt, not even with the sleeves rolled up and a few buttons left undone at the collar, just enough to get a glimpse of Beka’s collarbones. It matched his skin tone wonderfully, and Yuri had to admit that his imagination always started running wild when he saw Beka in this shirt, even before he was forced to deal with whatever he was feeling nowadays. 

Because obviously, there was something he was feeling, even Yuri Plisetsky, sitting on the throne of Planet Denial had to admit that. Nothing else could explain the sinking coldness in his stomach when he realized that Beka wearing the Date Night Shirt also meant that he was going on a date, he was going to meet some girl or guy and possibly fall in love with them, and then Yuri would have to listen to them having sex on the other side of the room when they think he’s sleeping until they get bored of him, move to an apartment together and Yuri would visit once a week until they hand him a wedding invitation, which would of course mean that after that he would get to visit even less, because they would be busy having private vacations and shared bank accounts and babies.

“Hey,” Otabek said, tearing Yuri away from the horror movie that was his future.

“Going on a date?” Yuri asked, trying to sound like someone who actually did not care, at all.

“Yeah, remember that guy from last time?”

“The boring one?”

“That’s him, yes,” Beka smiled, “I decided to give him another chance, maybe he just, you know, needs time to open up and be himself.”

“Great,” he said, “good luck.”

It was at that point when Yuri realized that this cold feeling twisting his insides was definitely not normal, and he did what any responsible adult, who learnt to deal with human emotions, would do.

He ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a slightly longer post about this on my [tumblr](http://kiazareni.tumblr.com/post/175988787930/update), but again: i am so, so sorry for disappearing, um... i'm back now?


End file.
